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Explore economic dispatch, retail electricity prices, generation technologies, thermal vs. hydro power, generator types, cost curves, and mathematical formulations in power system analysis.
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EE 369POWER SYSTEM ANALYSIS Lecture 15Economic Dispatch Tom Overbye and Ross Baldick
Announcements • Read Chapters 6 (section 6.12) and 7 (sections 7.1 to 7.3). • Homework 12 is 6.62, 6.63, 6.67 (calculate economic dispatch for values of load from 55 MW to 350 MW); due Tuesday, 11/29. • Class review and course evaluation on Tuesday, 11/29. • Midterm III on Thursday, 12/1, including material through Homework 12.
Retail Electricity Prices • There are many fixed and variable costs associated with power systems, which ultimately contribute to determining retail electricity prices. • The major variable operating cost is associated with generation, primarily due to fuel costs: • Roughly 30% to 50% of retail costs. • Retail prices also reflect the capital costs of building the generation, transmission, and distribution system as well as other costs.
Power System Economic Operation • Different generation technologies vary in the: • capital costs necessary to build the generator • fuel costs to actually produce electric power • For example: • nuclear and hydro have high capital costs and low operating costs. • Natural gas generators have low capital costs, and (with gas available from fracking) moderate operating costs.
Power System Economic Operation • Fuel cost to generate a MWh can vary widely from technology to technology. • For some types of units, such as hydro, “fuel” costs are zero but the limit on total available water gives it an implicit value. • For thermal units it is much easier to characterize costs. • We will focus on minimizing the variable operating costs (primarily fuel costs) to meet demand.
Power System Economic Operation • Power system loads are cyclical. • Therefore the installed generation capacity is usually much greater than the current load. • This means that there are typically many ways we could meet the current load. • Since different states have different mixes of generation, we will consider how generally to minimize the variable operating costs given an arbitrary, specified portfolio of generators.
Thermal versus Other Generation • The main types of generating units are thermal and hydro, with wind and solar rapidly growing. • For hydro the fuel (water) is free but there may be many constraints on operation: • fixed amounts of water available, • reservoir levels must be managed and coordinated, • downstream flow rates for fish and navigation. • Hydro optimization is typically longer term (many months or years). • We will concentrate on dispatchable thermal units, looking at short-term optimization: • Non-dispatchable wind and solar can be incorporated by subtracting from load.
Generator types • Traditionally utilities have had three broad groups of generators: • “Baseload” units: large coal/nuclear; almost always on at max. • “Midload,” ‘intermediate,” or “cycling” units: smaller coal or gas that cycle on/off daily or weekly. • “Peaker” units: combustion turbines used only for several hours. during periods of high demand
Block Diagram of Thermal Unit • To optimize generation costs we need to develop cost relationships between net power out and operating costs. • Between 2-10% of power is used within the generating plant; this is known as the auxiliary power.
Thermal generator Cost Curves • Thermal generator costs are typically represented by one or other of the following four curves • input/output (I/O) curve • fuel-cost curve • heat-rate curve • incremental cost curve • For reference • 1 Btu (British thermal unit) = 1054 J • 1 MBtu = 1x106 Btu • 1 MBtu = 0.29 MWh
I/O Curve • The IO curve plots fuel input (in MBtu/hr) versus net MW output.
Fuel-cost Curve • The fuel-cost curve is the I/O curve multiplied by fuel cost. • A typical cost for coal is $ 1.70/MBtu.
Heat-rate Curve • Plots the average number of MBtu/hr of fuel input needed per MW of output. • Heat-rate curve is the I/O curve divided by MW. Best heat-rate for most efficient coal units is around 9.0
Incremental (Marginal) cost Curve • Plots the incremental $/MWh as a function of MW. • Found by differentiating the cost curve.
Mathematical Formulation of Costs • Generator cost curves are usually not smooth. However the curves can usually be adequately approximated using piece-wise smooth, functions. • Two approximations predominate: • quadratic or cubic functions • piecewise linear functions • We'll assume a quadratic approximation:
Coal Usage Example • A 500 MW (net) generator is 35% efficient. It is being supplied with coal costing $1.70 per MBtu and with heat content 9000 Btu per pound. What is the coal usage in lbs/hr? What is the cost?
Wasting Coal Example • Assume a 100W lamp is left on by mistake for 8 hours, and that the electricity is supplied by the previous coal plant and that transmission/distribution losses are 20%. How much coal has he/she wasted?